


Sleep Deprivation and Prospective Students

by superqueerdanvers



Category: Vampire Chronicles - All Media Types
Genre: (but it doesn't really affect the story), Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Gen, M/M, Trans Male Character, Underage Drinking, trans lestat de lioncourt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:01:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23913487
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superqueerdanvers/pseuds/superqueerdanvers
Summary: Louis accidentally almost hits a girl with his car, only to find out that she's a high school student visiting the college for an overnight Admissions event, and she's supposed to stay with him and Lestat. It doesn't go well.
Relationships: Claudia & Louis de Pointe du Lac, Lestat de Lioncourt/Louis de Pointe du Lac
Comments: 2
Kudos: 14





	Sleep Deprivation and Prospective Students

Louis had been fighting to stay awake the entire drive back to campus, and he’d almost reached the student parking lot when his eyes drifted closed. He jerked awake – and saw a girl crossing the street right in front of him. He slammed on the brakes, and the car jerked to stop inches away from her.

She stumbled backwards, then turned and glared at him. She had curly blonde hair, and she was wearing a pale pink pea coat. Louis noticed a familiar lanyard around her neck – it was the nametag Admissions gave to prospective students. “What the _fuck_?! Learn to drive, asshole!” the girl yelled, then flipped him off and ran the rest of the way across the street.

Louis watched her go, then slowly exhaled and pulled into the parking lot.

* * *

“Lestat, I almost hit someone! A prospie!” Louis paced back and forth through the dorm room he shared with Lestat.

“Then don’t drive tired.” Lestat sprawled across his unmade bed, wearing only a binder and rainbow boxer shorts, his laptop on his stomach. Louis couldn’t remember if he’d ever seen Lestat use his desk.

“Well I wouldn’t have driven tired if you hadn’t kept me up til _three fucking AM_ last night! You know I have an 8:30 class!”

“I was rehearsing!”

“At 3 AM?! Besides, aren’t there rehearsal rooms in the music building? Go there if you want to sing Six: the Musical in the middle of the night.”

“It was Heathers!”

“This time. Lestat, I could’ve killed a prospie!”

“But you didn’t! Anyway, I have a class soon.” He sat up and started to pull on a pair of red skinny jeans that had been draped over the foot of his bed.

Louis sat down on his own bed. “I’m serious. What if she tells someone and I get in trouble?”

“It’s a college campus. Lots of people almost hit people. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“I could get arrested! Or expelled, or—“

“You won’t. You’ll probably never even see her again.” Lestat paused and looked at himself in the mirror. “Do you think I could pass my binder off as a tank top?”

“No. Put on a real shirt.”

Lestat rolled his eyes, then pulled on a white t-shirt. He grabbed his backpack and a jean jacket, and headed out the door. As he left, he called, “Oh, don’t forget, we’re hosting a prospie tonight!”

Right. Louis had forgotten about that. He hadn’t wanted to host a prospective student – as a spring admit, he’d only started college a couple months ago himself. He didn’t think he could tell or show a prospie much about college life. But Lestat had really wanted to host someone, so when the Admissions Office had asked people to host admitted high school students visiting overnight, he’d reluctantly agreed. At least maybe having a guest would prevent Lestat from keeping him up too late tonight.

* * *

Lestat had volunteered to pick up the student they were hosting from the Admissions event, so Louis was studying in their room that evening when Lestat arrived with their prospie – a familiar blonde girl in a pale pink pea coat. “Hi Louis, this is Claudia. Claudia, this is my roommate, Louis!”

_Fuck_.

Louis swallowed. “Uh, hi. How are you liking campus?”

“I guess the campus itself is okay, and the info sessions I went to were fine, but some dickhead almost ran me over this morning! Anyway, where’s the bathroom?”

Lestat told her, and she set down her duffle bag and left. When she was out of earshot, Louis turned to Lestat. “Does she know? That I’m the one who…”

“No. She told me the sun was reflecting off the windshield and she couldn’t see the driver.”

“You’re sure? You didn’t say anything, or make any weird faces that gave it away?”

Lestat gasped. “I am an _actor_ , Louis!”

“You’re a freshman theatre major.”

“I’m an actor. I did not make weird faces. She doesn’t know.”

Louis relaxed, then: “I should tell her.”

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah, I know _you_ wouldn’t, that’s why I said _I_ should.”

Lestat shook his head. “That’s not what I meant. She spent the whole walk here talking about what she wants to do to whoever almost hit her. So maybe don’t tell her it was you. Just let her think it was some random idiot who can’t drive.”

“I can’t lie to her!”

“It’s not lying, it’s just…not telling the full truth.”

“That sounds like lying.”

Just then, Claudia returned. “What are you talking about?”

Louis froze. “Uh…we’re just…uh…”

“We were just talking about things to do tonight,” Lestat interrupted smoothly.

Louis breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah. Was there anywhere on campus you wanted to see?”

Claudia sat down on Louis’s bed. “I’ve had the campus tour already. Is there anything actually fun to do?”

Lestat lit up. “We could go to a party! I think one of my friends is already planning –“

“No. Lestat, we’re not supposed to take the prospies to parties! Did you even read the email? Besides, it’s only Thursday night. _You_ might not have Friday classes, but I do, and Claudia might want to sit in on a class or two.”

Lestat rolled his eyes. “Party pooper. Let me guess, we’re not supposed to go off-campus either?”

“No, and we couldn’t even if we wanted to, because _I don’t have a car_.”

“Oh!” Lestat remembered. “Right. Yeah, you don’t have a car. Anyway, if we can’t go off-campus or to a party, do you want to go to the dining hall? We could swipe you in and get you free food.”

“No thanks, I had a big dinner.”

“Well, if we’re not going anywhere, I guess we could play cards. Louis, you know how to play poker, right?” Lestat suggested.

“Yeah, but I have homework, so I can’t teach you tonight.” And he was pretty sure Admissions would frown on teaching prospies poker.

“Okay, what about Cards Against Humanity? Wait, that doesn’t work with two people. Do you know how to play Snaps?”

Claudia shook her head, and Lestat grinned and grabbed a deck of cards from his bookshelf, then plopped down on the floor. “I’ll teach you!”

Snaps turned out to be a very loud game, and Claudia and Lestat had been playing for about 15 minutes when Louis gave up on getting anything done in that room. He closed his laptop and put it in his backpack. “I’m going to the library.”

* * *

A couple hours later and 18 minutes before the deadline, Louis hit “Submit” on his Intro Philosophy paper. It was a little shorter than it should have been, and it probably could have used some more editing, but he was tired and it would have to do. He packed his backpack and headed back to his dorm.

* * *

Louis could tell something was up the moment he reached his floor. Loud music and people’s voices came from his and Lestat’s room. He opened the door to find the room packed with people. Lestat was dancing on top of his desk – so he did use it for something – and holding a red Solo cup. He smiled when he saw Louis. “LOUIS!” he shouted over the music, “WE COULDN’T TAKE CLAUDIA OUT TO A PARTY, SO WE’RE HAVING A PARTY HERE!”

Louis closed his eyes for a moment. “What – that’s not – Lestat, can I talk to you for a minute?”

Lestat beamed and jumped down, stumbling a little when he landed. “Sure!”

“Outside?”

“Oh! Yeah!” Lestat nodded and followed Louis out into the hallway.

“Lestat, the point of that ‘no taking prospies to parties’ rule was that _there shouldn’t be prospies at parties_!”

“But we didn’t take her anywhere. We brought the party to her!” he said proudly.

“It doesn’t matter! You need to shut it down!”

Lestat reached out and ran his fingers through Louis’s long, dark hair. “Your hair is so pretty and soft!”

Louis swatted his hands away. As much as he loved having his hair played with, now was not the time. “I’m serious. You need to send those people home.”

“But we’re having fun! Claudia’s having fun, too, see?” He pointed inside, and Louis could see Claudia dancing. She didn’t seem to be holding a cup or bottle, so hopefully that meant she wasn’t drinking.

“I just really don’t want to get in trouble for this. I mean, I already almost killed her this morning…”

Lestat pouted. Louis folded his arms and raised an eyebrow. Lestat narrowed his eyes. Louis held his gaze. Lestat leaned forward, until his nose almost touched Louis’s. Louis didn’t move. Lestat’s blue eyes sparkled, and his blond curls were damp with sweat. “No.” He kissed Louis’s cheek, then ran back into the party.

Louis sighed and leaned back against the wall. He looked at the fire alarm and considered pulling it – it would get everyone out of the room, and maybe people wouldn’t come back to the party. But he didn’t want to be the dick that pulled the fire alarm in the middle of the night.

He went inside and made his way to Claudia. “I’m going to camp out in the common room until the party’s over. Want to come?”

Claudia nodded. “Yeah, I’m getting tired.”

As they started down the stairs to the common room, a boy with curly red hair caught up with them. “Hey, Louis and Claudia, right?”

They nodded. “I’m Armand. Did you need a place to spend the night?”

Louis shook his head. “We’re fine, I don’t want to take you away from the party if you were having fun. We’ll just hang out until everyone leaves.”

“And who knows when that’ll be,” Armand pointed out. “I was going to leave soon anyway – Lestat has terrible taste in music. Come stay in my room – you won’t have to worry about getting up to go back to your room when the party’s over. You will have to sleep on the floor, but better than the common room, right?”

Louis had to admit he liked that idea. He looked at Claudia. She shrugged. “Works for me. Let me get my stuff.”

Claudia grabbed her duffel bag and sleeping bag, and Louis grabbed his pillow, blanket, phone charger, and a pair of pajamas, and they followed Armand across campus to his dorm. As they walked, Louis asked Armand how he knew Lestat.

“We had the same intro theatre class last semester. Of course he always had to do the most dramatic monologues, and whenever we read plays, he had to be the lead. Fucking peacock. Thank God I don’t have any classes with him this semester.”

“Um,” Louis said. He wasn’t sure if he should agree with Armand – that did sound like Lestat – or defend his roommate. “So are you a theatre major too?”

Armand shook his head. “Undeclared. I’m thinking art, or maybe film studies. Or religion? I’m taking Intro to Religion right now, and it’s pretty cool.” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Cool,” Louis said. They walked in awkward silence for a minute. “I’m a philosophy major. Well, probably. I haven’t actually declared it yet. Claudia, what about you? Do you know what you want to study?”

They kept talking, and soon they reached Armand’s room. As they set down their things, Louis and Claudia took in the movie posters on the walls. Claudia pointed to one. “You like The Ring?”

Armand grinned. “It’s one of my favorite movies! Have you seen it?”

“No, but I’ve been wanting to!”

“Want to watch it now?”

“Sure!”

Louis was not a huge fan of horror movies, and he was really not a fan of watching horror movies late at night when he was already exhausted and had class in the morning. Still, Claudia wanted to watch it, and he thought he should go along with what his prospie wanted, especially after almost running her over, so he didn’t say anything.

Partway through the movie, Claudia mentioned that she was hungry, and Louis quickly offered to make popcorn. He insisted she and Armand continue watching without him, and after Armand gave him a bag of microwave popcorn and told him how to get to the floor’s kitchenette, he left.

He put the popcorn in the microwave and sighed, glad to escape the horror movie for a few minutes. Slowly, his eyes closed.

* * *

The shrieking of the fire alarm jolted him awake, and he realized with a start that there was a smell of smoke was coming from the microwave. “Shit!”

He unplugged the microwave and took the smoking bag of popcorn out. He looked at it, unsure what to do. He didn’t think he should take a bag of burned popcorn outside with him, and it probably wasn’t edible at this point anyway. He tossed it in the trash and hurried outside with the rest of the people in the building.

He found Claudia and Armand outside. Claudia glared at him, her arms crossed. “Did you burn the popcorn?”

Louis nodded. “I’m sorry, I’m really tired and I must have dozed off.”

She rolled her eyes and turned away. “Whatever.”

Eventually, the fire department cleared the building, and everyone went back inside. Louis glanced warily at Claudia and Armand. “Uh…do you want to continue the movie?”

Claudia raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? You burn the popcorn, interrupting the movie and making us evacuate the building and stand outside in the cold, and all you have to say is ‘ _Do you want to continue the movie_?’”

“I didn’t mean—“

“Forget it.” She shoved past him and Armand into the room and went to her duffel bag. “I’m going to bed.”

She, Louis, and Armand got ready for bed quickly. Despite his exhaustion, Louis had trouble falling asleep. For one thing, he was sleeping on the floor. Armand didn’t have an air mattress, and while Claudia at least had a sleeping bag, the best Louis could do was wrap his blanket around himself, which didn’t do much to cushion the floor. For another thing, he couldn’t stop thinking about The Ring. Every shadow, every strange noise was Samara, coming to kill him. When he finally did fall asleep, he slept fitfully, and he woke up several times from nightmares.

* * *

Louis hadn’t slept nearly long enough when sunlight suddenly flooded the room. He opened his eyes to see that Armand, already dressed, had flung the curtains open. On the floor next to him, Claudia groaned and covered her eyes. “Do you _mind_?”

“I have an 8:30 class, and its 8 now. Sorry, but I don’t want to leave you in here alone.” He didn’t sound sorry.

Louis sat up and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “You have an 8:30, and you went to a party _and_ stayed up late watching a movie last night? God, you’re worse than Lestat.”

“At least I didn’t almost kill my prospie.”

Louis froze. “How did you know that?”

“I overheard you talking to Lestat at the party.” Armand smirked.

Claudia looked from Armand to Louis. “What are you talking about?”

Louis looked at her and swallowed. “I’m the one who almost hit you yesterday.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She laughed coldly.

“I’m sorry, I was really tired and—“

“First you burn the popcorn and set off the fire alarm last night, and now you have the _nerve_ to tell me – _after the fact_ – that you were the one who almost murdered me yesterday? And you _lied_ about it?”

“I didn’t lie, I…” How had Lestat put it? “I just—“

“You said you didn’t have a car!”

He winced. She was right.

“And you!” she rounded on Armand, who abruptly stopped grinning. “You let me sleep in the same room as the asshole who almost killed me!”

She grabbed her toothbrush, toothpaste, and a change of clothes and left the room. Louis, realizing he’d forgotten to bring toiletries or clean clothes, folded his blanket. He was supposed to take Claudia to breakfast and make sure she got back to Admissions okay, so as furious as she was, he couldn’t just leave her here alone. And he had to go back to his room to change clothes and get his backpack before class. Which started at 8:30. He was going to be late.

“Do you want to get breakfast together?” he asked warily when Claudia returned.

“I don’t want to do anything with you,” she snapped, shoving her things into her duffel bag and rolling up her sleeping bag.

“Okay, um, can you find the Admissions office okay?”

“I have a map.”

“Okay, well, I have an 8:30 too, and I need to go back to my room for some stuff, so I guess I’ll leave now.” He picked up his things. “I hope you had a still had a good visit, or at least it wasn’t too terrible…”

“Oh, I’m never coming to this school again.” She picked up her duffel bag and sleeping bag and shoved past him out the door.

“Bye,” he said.

She didn’t answer. He followed her out the door and headed back to his dorm.

* * *

The room was still mostly dark when Louis opened the door. He shut it as quietly as he could and made his way to his dresser by the dim light coming from behind the curtains. Lestat sat up as he opened a drawer to take out a clean shirt. “Louis?”

“Hey,” Louis turned around. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

Lestat waved a hand dismissively. “You didn’t. My mom’s been texting me about this national park they want to visit this summer. Where were you?”

“Claudia and I stayed with your friend Armand.”

Lestat made a face. “He’s not my friend. Hey, wasn’t his dorm the one that had the fire alarm at like 1 AM last night?”

Louis flushed. “Yeah. Anyway, I just stopped by to change clothes and grab my stuff before class. Which is in…” he glanced at his phone, “Seven minutes. Shit, I have to go.”

“Stay,” Lestat said softly.

“What?”

“Stay here. Skip your class.”

Louis shook his head. “Lestat, I can’t just—“

“You’re already going to be late. And even if you go, will you be able to stay awake?”

Louis thought about it. His eyes were gritty, and his head ached from lack of sleep. He’d almost run Claudia over yesterday, and he’d burned popcorn bad enough to set off the fire alarm last night. He sighed and sat down on his bed. “You’re right.”

Lestat smiled a little. Then, “I’m sorry about last night. That party was…”

“Yeah.”

“And I shouldn’t have told you to lie to her.”

“No, you were right about how she’d react. She found out this morning – Armand brought it up, and then I had to explain—“

“Fucking Armand.”

Louis laughed and nodded. “And she was pissed. Wouldn’t even let me walk her to Admissions. Said she was never coming to this school again.”

Lestat whistled. They sat in silence for a minute. “Hey, wasn’t there a new episode of The Good Place last night?” Lestat asked.

“Yeah,” Louis grinned. Lestat liked The Good Place well enough, but it was Louis’s favorite show.

“Want to watch it?” Without waiting for a reply, Lestat grabbed his laptop and scooted over in bed to make space for Louis.

Louis took off his shoes and sat down next to Lestat. He took in his pale skin and bloodshot eyes. “You look like crap.”

“So do you. At least I have the excuse of being hungover,” Lestat retorted, putting his arm around Louis.

“I got like…five hours of sleep last night. Maybe. And not all at once. Do you want some ibuprofen?”

“Oh, God, yeah.”

Louis got up, grabbed the ibuprofen bottle and two water bottles from the mini fridge, and sat back down. He passed Lestat a water bottle and two pills, then took two himself.

“Thanks.” Lestat took his pills and started the episode.

Louis leaned his head against Lestat’s shoulder, and Lestat laid his head on Louis’s. They both fell asleep before they were even halfway through the episode, but that was okay. They could finish it later.


End file.
